Job Discussion Forums

[Alex42]

Next week I plan to have my students listen to Hotel California by the Eagles because the lyrics are fairly straightforward yet interesting, and quite clearly sung. I�m going to give them all the lines on seperate pieces of paper and have them arrange them into the correct order while they listen (because it�s more fun than just filling in the blanks on a lyrics sheet).

Do any of you know any other good songs for this sort of activity? I�m trying to steer away from Coldplay and stuff they hear all the time anyway.

And have you done any other song-related activities that worked well?

[Justin Trullinger]

Many, Many, Many!

In fact, practically anything!

Use U2's "I still Haven't found..." for the present perfect.

Bob Marley's "3 little birds" is good at elementary levels...

Janis Joplins song about the mercedes...materialism, shopping, all kinds of stuff.

Karen Carpenter's "close to you" (sorry) is clear, easy to understand, and provides an intro to metaphorical language...

Tom Waits, Frank Sinatra, emenem, whoever!

I'm not saying class should be all songs, but practically ANY song can be used in ways that are fun, motivational, and educational. And you can find all the lyrics using google!

Suggestions on how:
Cut up lines for students to order

Go crazy with the white out and make a gap fill.

Give students "key word" cards, then have students pick out the words they here, and put them on the wall, in order.

Have Karaoke night, and make them all sing in English.

Have them write summaries of the "story" told in a song. (for some reason, country music is great for this, if you can stand it.




And many more possibilities..

Have fun,

Justin

[dajiang]

Well, music is most effective if it appeals to the students.
So, try top 40 music from the country you're teaching in.
In China I found students didn't know much about popular English music, so anything I did there was alright. (Abba, the Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel appealed to them most... They knew it from Karaoke bars)

I mostly did classics there by U2, Eric Clapton, Gun's n roses and stuff like Wonderful world (Louis Armstrong). As long as it was fit to sing along with... so Queen wasn't on my list.
Sometimes it's a nice addiction for a grammar topic. For present perfect you can use 'Still haven't found what I'm looking for' by U2, for instance.

Robbie Williams has got great stuff too, and Britney's music isn't bad either. If you've got a guitar yourself it's a real blast to play that stuff.

Mostly I just left spaces in the lyrics. Not too close together obviously.
Sometimes I tried to have the class guess what the words might be, before listening to the song. Often lyrics are pretty logical and you can more or less guess what word will be next.

BTW, beware of the contents of the lyrics, and what it's really about.
With Hotel California for instance, you might be in for a suprise.
But the lyrics of Wind of Change (Scorpions) really appealed to the Chinese students.

Have fun,
Dajiang

[ls650]

A book I've found helpful:
"Singing Grammar:Teaching grammar through songs"
by Mark Hancock
Cambridge University Press
ISBN 0-521-62542-4

[amandajoy99]

recently, i used bob dylan's "hard rain's gonna fall." it's great because it uses a couple of contrasting verb tenses that students have trouble with. first, simple past and present perfect - the first verses start with "where have you been, my blue eyed son," "what did you see" "what did you hear" and "who did you meet." each verse is full of verbs in the same tense as the initial question. then the last verse is in the future - all "i will" - "what will you do now, my blue eyed son?" but at the end of each verse you have an example of "going to" future - "a hard rain's going to fall." so i take out all the verbs, ask them to read the song and guess which tense they think each verb will be in, explaining that the verses are consistent throughout. then we listen, they check their answers, and we discuss why bob said "i have been out in front of a dozen dead oceans," but "i saw a white man who walked a black dog," and why a hard rain is GOING to fall, but the singer says "I WILL know my song well." the vocab is kind of tough, though, so use it with a class you think would be capable of understanding bob dylan's metaphors.
i love to use johnny cash "i hardly ever sing beer drinking songs," which is a little obscure, but great for practicing the formation of negatives. every single line is in the negative, with phrases like "i don't ever" "i don't have any" "i hardly ever," so you can remind em no double negatives and tell have them choose NEVER or EVER, NONE or ANY for blanks.
i think another good activity is working with rhymes. find a song with plenty of good rhyming lines. in each set or group of rhymes, leave one word, blank out the others. have students brainstorm rhyming words and see if they can figure out which ones go in the blank. i used jimi hendrix "may this be love," for a group of young guitar players.

[Alex42]

[moonraven]

Someone suggested Top 40 songs, but I would stay away from songs that everybody has heard over and over. "Hotel California" has become the warhorse of EFL classes--most everybody is sick of it. As a Mexican musician friend who plays and leads a group in the beach resort, Zihuatanejo, said several years ago: "If one more person asks me to play 'Hotel California', I will either kill the person--or kill myself."

The songs that my students have liked to work with over the past 10 years are:

Knockin' on Heaven's Door (I use the Clapton version because it's clearer than Dylan's or that of Guns and Roses)

Three others by Dylan, but not necessarily his version: It Ain't Me, Babe; Don't Think Twice; What's a Sweetheart Like You Doin' in a Dump Like This. Dylan songs are challenging for their vocabulary. I always have the students do a writing follow-up to see if they have picked up Dylan's spirit.

Chet Baker's vocals of "standards" are always very clear. There are lots of cds out there, as Chet became a cult figure even before his mysterious death and the release of Bruce Weber's documentary about him, "Let's Get Lost"--one called The Best of Chet Baker Sings is good as most of the songs can be used productively in class. His version of the Brown and Henderson song, The Thrill Is Gone (not to be confused with BB) is always a winner--in fact 2 months after we worked with it in class in a university in Mexico a student entered class a little late with a black cloud over his head singing "The Thrill Is Gone". His classmates joined in--we all knew he'd had a fight with his wife....Then we all laughed.

Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" can be used at just about any level, and students respond well to it.

Guns and Roses had a few good songs--especially "November Rain", but everybody--including this poster--burned out on them about 7 years ago. Probably because when you have to repeat all that racket so that folks can do gap fills everybody's head begins to ache.

If you have a basic group that's kind of shakey and uncertain about everything in the beginning, let them work with "Yesterday"--it's so familiar that they sing it right off and think they know English. Great confidence builder.

Lennon's "Imagine" is very familiar, too--but can be used productively at higher levels than basic.

The most important aspect to remember, is that music moves through the emotional body--and therefore opens the artery of learning--so you need to have emotionally-oriented activities to go with the songs.

[Glenski]

I'm going to use a book called Hit Parade Listening this year for my 3rd year HS kids. It has 20 popular songs plus gap fill and discussion exercises and an explanation for each song (so you can get the real meaning behind them, including Hotel California), plus a narrative they have to listen to for content. I'll include some writing and speaking activities to coincide with this, but in all, this will only be done in half of one class every week (they meet twice a week).

[been_there]

also, for practicing past tense Yesterday by the Beatles and Tom's Diner by Cheryl Crow.



Alex 42: some folk say "Hotel California" is about a rehab clinic.

[Glenski]

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

This link might come in handy for finding lyrics to print out:

http://www.azlyrics.com/ (A - Z Lyrics Universe)

note: some annoying pop-ups on this website, but otherwise you can find just about anything you're looking for!

[wuzza]

"tears in heaven" by Clapton is good for conditional tense "would you....if....?" etc.
Also, I like songs that have a story behind them, as it opens up discussion. Also it's a beautiful song that appeals to my students, just be wary some words aren't clear, so don't make them the 'blanks'

Another song I like to use (I'm in Korea) is "perfect" by Alanis Morisette, which is about parents trying to live through their children, and forcing them to push themselves harder and harder until.....whatever, it suits Korean society perfectly. (maybe other Asian societies too?) Again, be wary of Miss Morisette's drawls.

If you have really advanced (older) students, you can try "It doesn't matter" by Wyclef, a really fun, fast song with a good rhythm, useful for forcing students to take notes at high speed, and predict what's coming, also a lot of slang or cultural references. Doesn't contain any bad language either like Eminem, whose stuff I would love to use otherwise.

Billy Joel's "We didn't start the Fire" is useful if you want to assign homework, have each student take one reference in the song, and find out what it means, and tell the students in class the next day. I did this every day with a class, each student taking one word/name and it would take about 10-15 minutes for them to finish. Great history lesson, for me too, as I had to get on the net and look most of them up.

Whatever way you use music, it's a great way to break up the monotony of a class, and certainly helps students remember grammar adn vocabulary

[lily]

Have a look at these 2 threads over in China: Job related posts for more ideas.

Music in the classroom.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=22005

Looking for a song with a catchy refrain.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=21788

Cheers, Lily.

[Alex42]

The institute�s just told me they�d rather I didn�t do songs with the students.

I�ll do them with some other students at some point though.

Just a thought, have any of you ever used songs with downright weird lyrics in their classes? Like: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/theshins/kissingthelipless.html

Would it be of any educational value whatsoever?

[Justin Trullinger]

Tried "Me and My Monkey." By Robbie Williams-

I don't know what the ##$% it's about, though.

Justin